


Prince Consort

by LindaMaceMichalik



Series: Well met [5]
Category: Alexander (2004), Alexander Trilogy - Mary Renault, Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
Genre: AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-11-04 14:38:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17900018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LindaMaceMichalik/pseuds/LindaMaceMichalik
Summary: "Ah he's mad about the boy!" Lestat sympathised. "I have a boy of my own!"Where it is brought home that a long list of lovers is no match for a single, constant companion.





	Prince Consort

**Author's Note:**

> Usual disclaimers - i do not own the rights to nor make profits from the use of characters from Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles and Mary Renault's Alexander Trilogy nor Terry Pratchett's luggage (scary thought)  
> ======

Photograph  pottery, Zeus and Ganymede by David Liam Moran

Dust settled, pools of afternoon sunlight receded, traversed the drab, threadbare pub carpet as the sunset played out and lamplight took over, shining in through the stained glassed door. A faint coppery tang tainted the air, over and above the odor of stale beer and fag ends; possibly from a lingering stain of lupous blood, possibly from the pint-sized, thermal mug of body-warmed fresh, human blood. The empty room waited, the cracked, aged, dark wooden bar tables waited; they all waited rather like a sapient pearwood chest cannot, but does wait.

A Rake minced in through the door, pulling on the cream lace cuffs of his pale cream cotton shirt, straightening the tails of his jacquard-ed plum coloured, slim fit, hip length jacket, adjusting it over his matching waistcoat. His soft leather, knee high black boots were perfection; they'd been polished just before leaving the Auvergne to fly across the Atlantic, to fly to Norleans - to fly to his Louis.

He hoped Louis was waiting for him at their renovated flat, in New Orleans, potentially sporting the emerald jacket and baby green silk striped shirt and the the moleskin trousers that Lestat had sent over. He knew he had his work cut out to persuade his one time lover to come back to the Chateau with him. But what did any of it mean without his special one to share it with? All in all, it was damnably poor timing for some malevolent ghost to distract him from his near hopeless mission.

Truthfully, Prince Lestat did not mince, rather like cougars and panthers do not mince; at times he may choose to descend, sidle or possibly stride, depending on the circumstances and his mood; he had been know to run hard, but no, he had never minced. The six foot tall, blue-eyed, shoulder length blonde-haired pride of the Blood Communion possessed hauteur and knew how to flaunt it.

"A few minutes gentlemen - Thorne, Cyril, that means let me go in on my own!" He paused at the door, holding it ajar. Those addressed seemed to be expressing a contrary opinion.  
" So? Well just hover, tread air or something. I am safe as I can be. Just wait outside!"

He shut the door and scented the air - Wolf? He took in the vacant public space and wrinkled his nose at sight and the smell of the velvet liquid. "If needs must!"  
He slid into the bench behind the table with the mug, re-adjusted his attire with care and raised the offending liquid to his lips - tiny fangs emerged at the corners of his lips.  
"Sang-ordinaire! Ah well, O+ will have to do - neither stale nor cold, I suppose one must be thankful for small mercies!"  
He leaned back, crossed his legs, then, thinking better of it, uncrossed them. Very well, he thought, let it commence and let it be nothing to do with Memnoch the Devil, nothing whatsoever to do with that devil!

A short, stockily built, muscular, battled scarred man flung open the bar door, releasing it to fly shut behind him. Barely 5 foot 4, Lestat made no mistake; this man was every bit the predator Lestat was.. He wore a V-necked, floor length, gold trimmed and embroidered, padded, deep red gown tied with a sash and a thin ribbon of twisted gold tied around his head, encircling his shoulder length hair.  
Oh really - blonde, blue-eyed, haughty! Oh really?

The seated Prince regarded the standing King as the latter shredded the room with his intense gaze. Unappetising as it was, Lestat decided he would settle for the mug of blood in his hand. He didn't strictly need to feed at all these days and, all things considered, he was inclined to pass on this lion; the man was no Bambi.

A black, two handled Grecian wine cup appeared on the table beside Lestat, it's lewd, golden image drowning in a rising tide of rich, red wine. Lestat gave a languorous wave, inviting the King to join him

Alexander had been drinking lightly throughout the day and into the night. His wedding feast was not just a Macedonian drink-fest for his country men; he'd needed to pay particular attention to all the tribal leaders vying for his favours whilst keeping an eye on both his bride, Roxanne and his lover, Hephaestion. He'd seen Cleitus across the square whispering to Hephaestion and Ptolemy had gone to break up the resulting brawl. He could swear the kohl around Phaei's eyes had been running and he hated the protective arm he'd seen Cleitus offer him after Ptolemy had got the two to reconcile. The last he'd seen, Cleitus was still embracing Phaei and leading him away from the square where carousing had gone on into the Bactrian night.

He'd had enough! He strode into the Keep of the Hill Fort, out of the square... and into this damned chamber....  
"Son of Lilith! Son of the Lamia!" he cried drawing out his sword, thrusting it at Lestat.

"Really?" Lestat tried hard not to laugh at him. "If you know what I am you must know that won't help!" He flapped feebly at the sword in Alexander's hand and gave him a fanged, toothsome grin.  
He patted the stool beside him and nudged the wine cup towards the agitated warrior.  
"Just pull up a pew - when the Spirits interfere I've learnt to my cost that you're best off just getting on with it! My names Lestat, Brat Prince Extraordinaire, and you are?"

The King kept his sword extended and squatted down into a ready stance.

"Prince's honour, I won't drink your blood - look I've already got some!" He flicked a few drops at the the King.

He wiped the spots off his face and licked his fingers. No stranger to blood on the battle field, including his own, he nodded at the Vampire Prince. He sheathed his sword and accepted the stool, took the pew, reaching for the wine cup.  
"Alexander, King of Macedonia, Great King of Persia!."

He offered a libation to the gods, dropping some wine onto the floor before drinking the rest in one draught. He caught a glimpse of a naked Eromenos inside the vessel at the bottom of the cup only to see it disappear under a flood of wine as the beaker refilled itself.  
"And that" he observed morosely "is the problem in a nutshell" as the image of the Beloved disappeared under a blood red tide.

Lestat leaned across to look into the wine cup and Alexander hissed, moving his neck away from the Lamia's fangs.  
"Really darling, you don't need to worry about little moi! " Lestat reassured. "In vino veritas and all that?"

Alexander growled and slumped onto the table. He tried again, downing the cup in one only to see the Ganymede disappear once more.  
"He's not even a boy anymore" he complained.

"Ah he's mad about the boy!" Lestat sympathised. "I have a boy of my own!"

"And a eunuch and a mistress and a wife and two wives-in-waiting back at Susa..." Alexander grumbled. To hell with a clear head, he thought and drained the cup again.

" Well, if you want a dick contest ... let's see - there was Nicky (human to human, puppy love), Gabrielle (oedipal), Louis, Claudia (paedophilia till you realise she was in her 60s), Armand (almost), Marius (almost), Akasha (as the rapie, did that count?) David (as rapist, did that count?), Amel (incestuous AND cerebral) ++ ... " Hmm, the only one without a bracket was Louis and he'd left Lestat to live with another man, the same man several times over ...  
He looked across at Alexander's hooded eyes and slumped shoulders, "Honestly, it's at times like these I miss the little things about being mortal - like being able to get blind drunk when I want to!"

They stared across the table at each other.  
"Strictly speaking, I do seem to push Louis to the back of the queue more often than not."  
"No wonder he doesn't believe in an us any more!"  
"But you see, he's not so much a boy as THE boy"

Alexander stared out the door, wondering where Cleitus had been going with his Boy. 'Not so much a boy." he disagreed with himself. "Way more than that!"

"Not just a pretty face then?" prompted Lestat, thinking of dark nights by the fireside, books and paintings; quiet talks, walking back from the theatre, the opera, laughing at the steam boats, learing at the changing fashions in the shop fronts; time moving on, things changing around them but their Friendship remaining as the one sure, shared constant.

Alexander's face lit up - 'Not just a pretty face?'  
"And what a pretty face, and ass, and abs and chassis and fixtures and fittings ..." He tipped back another cupful, grinning fondly, foolishly.  
"But I swear he could rule our empire with his little finger - he's a diplomat, an engineer; he can manage logistics, smooth ruffled feathers, fight by my side, he'd die in my place; he can wrestle my mother's letters into the dust, he's not afraid to stand up to me and fight me into the dust if that's what's needed..."  
"and as a lover....." His eyes drifted, imagining a bed where Cleitus and Hephaestion lay, naked, legs tangled, sweating, moaning.  
"Gods!!" he moaned into his hands.

"He's my Prince Consort" murmured Lestat, the realisation hitting him hard - this is why Amel insisted he had to go find him, bring him back to the Chateau. With Louis by his side, he could stop being lonely, he could be the Vampire Prince that the communion needed.  
"Everything is possible if he is with me" he whispered.

Alexander's eyes refocused. "Prince Consort? .... Yes!"

"Who?" Lestat blinked.  
"Hephaestion!"  
"No, I meant Louis!"

Alexander glared at the cup he'd been unable to drain, the image of his Beloved still hidden, drowned under a red tide. He lifted the cup over his head and dashed it to the ground. Wine soaked into the threads of the carpet, shards flew across the room. He bent down to pick up a piece of pottery with the face and upper torso of a love besotted, nude boy looking lovingly up at the bearded face of his Erastes. Not to be outdone, Lestat flung down his insulated thermal cup. The blood made a nice puddle, but being made of plastic the mug itself only rolled across the carpet, disappointingly unbroken.

"C'mon"'he slurred, wrapping an arm around Lestat's shoulder.

"Where're we going?" Lestat asked, brushing a few slivers of glazed pottery off his jacket, pulling at his lace cuffs once more.

"I don't know about you" Alexander said carefully, as if he might fall over otherwise "I don't know about you" he repeated "But I need to see a man about a coronation."

"Giving a couple of Prince Consorts their due?" asked Lestat.

Alexander nodded, wishing he'd not set the room spinning.  
"Exactly!"

And the two Best Friends Forever (for now) pushed out the door; the stone cold sober Vampire Prince supporting the the sozzled King of Persia. Both off to see their own Boy about some recognition and well earned promotions.

The bar sighed, the carpet slurped up it's latest offerings.  
Sapient pearwood can wait, its very patient. Ask any passing Wizzard.  
=====


End file.
